Apple wants iOS device users to be safer than ever while texting. To make that happen, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant is working on something new called “transparent texting.”
A patent application filed recently with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office portrays technology that would enable safer on-the-go texting.
The patent description of “transparent texting” refers to an electronic communication device’s camera that can “continuously capture and present video images as a background within a text messaging session currently being displayed by the device.”
Think of an augmented reality-style texting experience that lets you safely walk and text while never taking your eyes off of what’s in front of your feet.
The camera can be a rear-facing camera on the device, so that the video images represent the views that the device’s user would see if the device’s display were transparent. The camera can continuously capture and present the video images as the background in the text messaging session, so that the device’s user continuously can be aware of the environment beyond the device’s display while still focusing on the text messages being communicated.
The overriding objective, Apple concedes, is to help users avoid “stumbling over an object while participating in a text messaging session.”
